An Unfinished Defense

About the Author

Baker SpringF.M. Kirby Research Fellow in National Security PolicyDouglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy

It's appropriate, in a way, that North Korea
chose the Fourth of July to test-fire several missiles into the Sea
of Japan. That's the day we celebrate our independence, and
Pyongyang's saber-rattling shows the need for us to take further
steps to secure independence from the threat of missile attack.

If the intercontinental ballistic missile
(ICBM) launched by North Korea had been aimed at Alaska or the West
Coast of the United States, our missile-defense system - on alert
for weeks in anticipation of the launch - might have been able to
destroy the missile. We have 11 ground-based interceptors (nine in
Alaska and two in California) now in place to counter long-range
missiles.

But success in this endeavor wouldn't be
assured - for our missile-defense system is fairly limited,
particularly for countering missiles of this type.

First, the system is still under development - although some of it
is operational. Second, beyond those 11 ground-based interceptors,
we have little. The Navy seeks to field up to 20 Standard Missile-3
(SM-3) interceptors on four Aegis ships by the end of this year,
says Lt.-Gen. Henry Obering, director of the Missile Defense
Agency. But those interceptors are designed to counter medium-range
missiles.

And the system's coverage is spotty. If North Korea had fired the
long-range missile at Alaska or our West Coast, interceptors would
have been in position to counter it. But if the missile were aimed
at, say, Australia - an ally we're treaty-bound to protect - our
ground-based interceptors would've been in poor position to
respond.

And if North Korea launched a medium-range missile at Japan or
Guam, our best hope of success would be an SM-3-bearing ship
fortuitiously positioned to launch an intercept.

In any instance, we would certainly do our utmost if a launch
threatened the United States or an ally - but we have a lot of work
to do to be secure against missile attacks.

This need not have been the case. As far back as February 1991,
Stephen Hadley (now national security adviser to President Bush but
then an assistant secretary of defense for international security
policy) presented a missile-defense plan along with Ambassador
Henry Cooper, then director of the Strategic Defense Initiative
Organization.

The system they proposed - GPALS, for Global Protection Against
Limited Strikes - would be at least partially complete now if
Congress hadn't killed the plan soon thereafter.

GPALS would've been capable of defending against up to 200
individual missile re-entry vehicles. The plan called for a family
of defensive interceptors to counter short- and medium-range
missiles, ground-based missile defenses for countering long-range
missiles and a broader sensor network and command-and-control
system. By now, far more than 11 ground-based interceptors would
have been in place.

And they would've been bolstered by a constellation of space-based
interceptors called Brilliant Pebbles - basically, computer-guided
meteorites - which could have fended off all long-range and most
short- and intermediate-range missiles. Brilliant Pebbles would
have allowed multiple shots at the kind of missile North Korea
test-fired on Tuesday. Even if the full compliment of each element
of GPALS were not deployed today, we'd have been well-protected
against any target - within the United States or elsewhere - that
the North Koreans might choose to attack.

In 1991, when the GPALS plan was unveiled, its cost was estimated
at $41 billion (in 1988 dollars). We'll never get the protection we
need for that price now.

Yet we still need the system - perhaps now more than ever. The
North Korean situation provides a perfect example of why. Do we
bomb the launch pad at risk of getting it wrong and/or inflaming
world opinion against us? Or must we wait for loss of life and
property before acting against the threat?

A defensive option against missile attack is essential. It provides
the president with a wider variety of choices in a world where
nuclear weapons and ballistic-missile delivery systems are
proliferating and where future events are difficult to
predict.

It is long past time that Congress make up for its past failings
and fund a missile-defense architecture similar to GPALS. Only then
can we be independent of the fear of missile attack.

Baker
Spring is the F.M. Kirby Research Fellow in National
Security Policy in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign
Policy, at The Heritage Foundation

About the Author

Baker SpringF.M. Kirby Research Fellow in National Security PolicyDouglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign and National Security Policy